RSS Feeds and Readers
RSS Feeds and RSS Readers (or aggregators) work together to keep an internet user informed of any updates on websites which they have chosen to follow. It enables a person to consolidate information from all of the websites they would normally visit in one place, thus eliminating the need to visit each individual website each day and simplifying the person's web browsing experience. In order to begin, the person must decide if they would like to follow a specific website. There is usually a link on the webpage which lets a person automatically subscribe the RSS feed on the site. These updates will come through this feed and are updated on a constant basis. Blogs, podcasts, vodcasts and websites like cnn.com and espn.com all have RSS feeds which can subscribed to and monitored by an RSS reader.
Once a person has chosen to subscribe to a site, they will have to add the RSS feed to their reader. These readers can either be installed to a computer or web-based. There are many advantages to using a web-based RSS reader. Google Reader and iGoogle allow a person to access their feeds from any location with internet access. iGoogle is an excellent example of a personal RSS reader. It allows a person to subscribe to the RSS feed from different websites as well as monitoring/accessing your Gmail account, attaching useful widgets and even accessing Google Talk all from a single webpage. Google Reader is more specialized in that it primarily gathers RSS data and organizes it for the owner to keep track of all of their favorite websites. The added benefit of Google Reader is the idea that you can share any interesting information you have discovered with your friends, colleagues and students.
RSS feeds and readers could be integrated into an educational environment is a definite possibility. Within the classroom, teachers would be able to integrate RSS feeds into their wikis in order to share information with their students. For example, a social studies teacher could integrate an RSS feed from cnn.com into their wiki - essentially turning their wiki into a reader. Then they could create a lesson where the students are required to choose an article from the feed and write one paragraph summarizing the article and submit it via the wiki or a Google Docs account. If the students were assigned a Google Docs account, the teacher could simply share any links through Google Reader and still give the students the option to choose and article and submit their work online. Administrators could make information from their blogs available via an RSS feed for parents to subscribe to. This simplifies the dissemination of information and helps parents to keep informed as to what is going on in their child's school. The only issue with this scenario is the fact that the parents have to choose to subscribe to the feed for it to be of any use. Thankfully, setting up an RSS feed on a blog is quite simple and making the option available to parents would most likely be welcome.
RSS Feeds and Readers
RSS Feeds and RSS Readers (or aggregators) work together to keep an internet user informed of any updates on websites which they have chosen to follow. It enables a person to consolidate information from all of the websites they would normally visit in one place, thus eliminating the need to visit each individual website each day and simplifying the person's web browsing experience. In order to begin, the person must decide if they would like to follow a specific website. There is usually a link on the webpage which lets a person automatically subscribe the RSS feed on the site. These updates will come through this feed and are updated on a constant basis. Blogs, podcasts, vodcasts and websites like cnn.com and espn.com all have RSS feeds which can subscribed to and monitored by an RSS reader.
Once a person has chosen to subscribe to a site, they will have to add the RSS feed to their reader. These readers can either be installed to a computer or web-based. There are many advantages to using a web-based RSS reader. Google Reader and iGoogle allow a person to access their feeds from any location with internet access. iGoogle is an excellent example of a personal RSS reader. It allows a person to subscribe to the RSS feed from different websites as well as monitoring/accessing your Gmail account, attaching useful widgets and even accessing Google Talk all from a single webpage. Google Reader is more specialized in that it primarily gathers RSS data and organizes it for the owner to keep track of all of their favorite websites. The added benefit of Google Reader is the idea that you can share any interesting information you have discovered with your friends, colleagues and students.
RSS feeds and readers could be integrated into an educational environment is a definite possibility. Within the classroom, teachers would be able to integrate RSS feeds into their wikis in order to share information with their students. For example, a social studies teacher could integrate an RSS feed from cnn.com into their wiki - essentially turning their wiki into a reader. Then they could create a lesson where the students are required to choose an article from the feed and write one paragraph summarizing the article and submit it via the wiki or a Google Docs account. If the students were assigned a Google Docs account, the teacher could simply share any links through Google Reader and still give the students the option to choose and article and submit their work online. Administrators could make information from their blogs available via an RSS feed for parents to subscribe to. This simplifies the dissemination of information and helps parents to keep informed as to what is going on in their child's school. The only issue with this scenario is the fact that the parents have to choose to subscribe to the feed for it to be of any use. Thankfully, setting up an RSS feed on a blog is quite simple and making the option available to parents would most likely be welcome.